


First Meet

by distantoranges



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bullying, eremin week 2, this could technically be put under eremin i suppose but, well she’s mentioned at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantoranges/pseuds/distantoranges
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren gets dragged to work with his dad again, but today's a little different than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meet

**Author's Note:**

> A little story for Eremin Week 2 Day 1: First Meet
> 
> There was a post that floated by on tumblr about eremin week 2 so I thought since I got an (extremely obvious) idea for day 1's prompt I'd give it a shot. Please forgive me in advance as I haven't written anything besides essays and the occasional story or poem for class in years so this is probably horrid but here it is so enjoy maybe? Any feedback is greatly appreciated! ^_^

"It's only a short check-up, so stay put until I'm finished, _got it_?" Grisha Jaeger stressed the last two words with a tone that said _'If you dare even think about setting a foot off this porch you will loathe the day your mother and I decided to have a child more than the day the titans invaded the Earth'_ , so Eren nodded obediently. With only a suspicious glance more (there had been one too many incidences of Eren running off this week while Grisha was working and Grisha having to take an extra twenty minutes to hunt down the little trouble-maker before pulling the complaining young boy with him to his next appointment), Eren's father turned his back and walked into the first patient's house of the day.

An exasperated sigh escaped Eren's lips as he plopped down onto the porch, dangling his stubby legs over the edge and grumpily placing his head in both his hands. He didn't understand why he was dragged by his father to work everyday then expected to sit still outside while his dad did whatever doctor stuff he did inside. It's not like it was _his_ fault mom volunteered to help the new mother around the corner with her baby until she could get the hang of it herself. Besides, he was sure that he was old enough to be home alone now, especially with both of his parents no more than two streets away. But knowing that no matter what he could say to try to convince his parents of this the situation wasn't changing, Eren blew out an audible breath and laid back in defeat, arms quickly shooting up to cover his eyes as protection from the blinding sun beating down on his home district, Shiganshina. There were still five more houses to visit before the Jaegers met up back home for dinner. What a boring day it was going to be.

After wallowing in childish misery for about five minutes (which felt more like five _years_ ), shouts from nearby reached Eren's ears. He listened for a few seconds before he realized that there was no chance he'd be able to make out any words from this distance. Boredom, curiosity, and a love for excitement far surpassed any fear of punishment, so Eren took a quick glance towards the windows to make sure his dad wasn't watching before sneaking away towards the source of the commotion.

As he approached the scene, he began to hear parts of the taunts being thrown at some unfortunate soul.

"...your stupid books..."

"...something wrong with..."

"...outside the walls, you titan-loving freak."

One more rounded corner brought him into a narrow alleyway facing a long and blonde haired boy with piercing azure eyes about Eren's age, if a bit shorter, who was cowering and clutching an old, leather-bound book desperately to his chest with three boys a few years older, maybe nine or ten, surrounding him. Having not noticed Eren arrive, they continued.

"What, you're not answering us now? Finally decided that we're right?" the tallest said, shoving their target a little harder than what would be considered friendly.

"Yeah," one of the others agreed, with the third giving the blonde a kick. Eren quickly concluded that the tallest was the leader of their bullying trio.

"No, I-I already told you," started the boy in the middle, "I want to see the outside world because I'm sick of living in this cage! It has nothing to do with titans! There’s all kinds of things to see out there, and this book tells about it all. There's lands of ice and huge bodies of water and all kinds of things! If you're just going to ignore me for your own harmful purposes, I'm not going to bother to respond." Eren admired him, for despite his fear, he was trying his best to be brave.

"Oh really?" the tallest questioned with a mischievous grin. "Ignoring you? Then why don't you let me, ah, see that book of yours?" Suddenly, he reached out, snatched the book out of the smaller boy's hands, and shoved him to the ground before he even had the chance to react, the other two bullies chuckling all the while. He flipped through the pages with exaggerated expressions until a final look of disgust took hold of his features and he slammed the book shut and threw it down, not caring if he ruined it or not. The book's owner, still on the ground, whimpered and weakly reached out to grab it, but his hand was stepped on from above before he could take the book back. The tormentor started talking once again as if he was not crushing a wincing and teary-eyed child's hand. "That all seems like bullshit to me-"

Eren had had enough. "Hey!" he shouted, interrupting him mid sentence. The ill-natured laughter immediately came to a halt and all four heads whipped around to the end of the alleyway to stare at him with mixed expressions as he charged forward. As soon as he reached the group, Eren swung his fist and punched the leader square in the jaw. The older boy cried out and stumbled back, clutching his face as the two other bullies each grabbed one of their friend's attacker's arms to hold him back.

"Well, well, well, what's this, Armin? Your little friend come to save you?" Eren's victim, after a moment of recovery but still rubbing where he'd been hit, asked to the blonde, who had grabbed his book and was stumbling to his feet. There was a noticeable amount more anger in his voice than before, and Eren could see the blood in his mouth as he talked.

"No!" Armin cried. When he got an eyebrow raised at him in response, he corrected, a little quieter, "I mean, I've never met him before, Jonathon..."

The leader, Jonathon, glared. "Shut up." He smashed his foot into his stomach. The blonde yelped in pain as he fell, once again, to the ground. His head came down onto the pavement with a crack and blood started flowing out of his nose. Not missing a beat, the boy above kicked the side of his face. If his nose wasn't broken before, it sure was now. There was laughter once again.

Eren was filled with rage. How dare someone treat another human being like that?! How could these people even be human if they're capable of treating an innocent person like that? It didn't matter if they were human or not- they were evil. And Eren was going to beat the shit out them for it.

Because of their laughing, Jonathon's two friends that were holding Eren's arms grips loosed slightly, and Eren took advantage of it. He twisted just enough that he could kick out, his foot landing right between the legs of the boy on his left. He fell to his knees with a groan. When the boy on his right predictably let go of his other arm to help his friend, Eren kicked him in the shin. Wasting no time, he started to rush over to Jonathon, but he was already coming to Eren. Being larger, Jonathon had the advantage. He grabbed Eren's shirt collar and held him off the ground against the wall. 

"So?" he screamed into Eren's face. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you little punk?" Eren was not going to give him a response, so instead he spit in his face. With an enraged growl, he threw a punch just as Eren had done to him. Neither had time to do anything else, as Jonathon suddenly fell to his knees. As soon as he was down, something collided with his head and he fell sideways to the ground. Eren looked up to see a battered Armin holding his book up like a bat and breathing heavily. More important than that, however, over Armin's shoulder he saw the other two bullies approaching, and Jonathon was beginning to push himself up. 

Before they could scurry away, Eren and Armin were each grabbed by an older boy and thrown against opposite walls. They slid down them, and were immediately subjected to violent kicking. Eren saw the blonde curl up into a ball, unable to fight back. Instead of doing the same, Eren managed to jump to his feet. He refused to lose this fight.

As soon as he was up, he began wrestling with his current attacker. Jonathon, having gotten up and decided that Eren was more of a threat than Armin, joined in with his friend that was trying to take down Eren. Their scuffle didn't last very much longer, as a deep voiced boomed from the end of the alleyway, "Boys!"

Eren froze. He assumed the others did as well, but he reacted this way for a different reason. He knew that voice. He knew that tone. And he knew exactly what came after it. "Shit, run!" someone hissed, but Eren didn't bother to see who. All he paid attention to was the fuming form of Grisha Jaeger storming towards him, and only him- the other boys were not of his concern.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Eren's father shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at his chest. "Look at you! You're a mess! I told you that you were not to run off, and not only did you disobey me  _once again_ , but you went and got yourself into a fist fight!"

"But I had to help him," Eren countered, voice unusually quiet, pointing to Armin.

Grisha hadn't seemed to notice the little blonde over at the other wall, for a look of surprise crossed his face at the mention of another person. He looked at between Eren and Armin a few times before commanding, his tone a little less harsh, "Get your friend."

Eren stuck out his hand to the quivering, blood-splattered, and bruise-covered little blonde boy who was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest and his back against the wall. "Can you stand?" he asked. The boy on the ground sniffed and looked up. His large, glistening eyes stared at Eren in what might have been shock mixed with a little bit of awe before tentatively reaching out and grabbing the outstretched hand with his good hand.

"...Y-Yeah, I'm okay," the blonde stammered as he was hauled to his feet. "Thank you for sticking up for me."

"I wasn't just going to let them hurt you. Armin, right? I'm Eren."

"Come on, Armin," Grisha said, interrupting the boys' conversation. "Why don't you lead us back to your house and I can help clean up your wounds and see if anything is broken, all right?"

Armin nodded. "It's not far. This way," he directed and led them the opposite way both Eren and Grisha had entered.

"So, who were they? And why, exactly, were they hurting you?" Eren finally asked after a walking for a few minutes.

"Oh, they're just some neighborhood bullies. It's okay; they pick on me all the time. They do it because of my book that I made the mistake of telling them about recently. I'm just sorry that you had to get dragged into it this time."

"What's this book about?" He'd address the bullies later, after they were all bandaged up. Right now, he was more interested in what could possibly be in a book that would make them attack Armin.

"Well, like I said, I learned about the outside world from this book. It says there's lots of water, much, much, bigger than the rivers. There's salt in it, and it takes of most of the world! It's called the ocean. I want to see the ocean more than anything. There's also places that are made of ice. Yeah! It's like land, just all one big block of ice. There are things called volcanoes too. They shoot really hot, melted rock out of the top of them called lava and..." Armin went on and on about the places and things his book described, gesturing wildly with his hands as he did, and Eren listened intently. As they approached his door, Armin finished with, "And that's not anywhere near all of it. Maybe... maybe you'd like to read it with me?" 

Maybe today wasn't so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> happy 5:26 am on sunday it is officially eremin week 2 and i am officially finished with this story 
> 
> congratulations to anyone who can write because this writing stuff is hARD


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